Author Archives: dani manzo

3 Most Important

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  1. I learned the immense influence the U.S had/has on many Latin American countries. To understand the influence the U.S has now, it was beneficial to understand their influence in the past. A lot of their intervention in Latin America was in response to the Cold War. For example, the U.S backed Pinochet, a dictator who committed enormous amounts of human right violations, because Allende was a socialist and the U.S wanted to eliminate the spread of communism.
  2. I learned that in order to understand what is happening in Latin American countries you should be aware of their pasts, for example understand Chile’s history helps understand the protests happening today because of income inequality.
  3. The fight for human rights continues. I think it’s easy to get stuck focusing on all the violence occurring in many Latin American countries but we must not let it deter us from finding solutions, especially with our now learned historian skills and knowlege.

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Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional

The feedback I received definetly helps me strengthen my article. I plan on taking all the suggestions made, such as expanding on the role the group has in present society, making sure the history presented is accurate and citing the information, and reorganizing the section of presidents. My main plans for improving my article was by adding more sources, since the sources presented were not up to Wikipedia standards. I still plan on adding and fixing that as well. By having more suggestions, other than my own, on how I should improve the article, I will begin addressing those suggestions in my first draft.

 

Comisión Femenil Mexican Nacional

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How is this aspect of Latin American history represented?

The article, Comisión Femenil Mexican Nacional, explains what the organization’s main goal is to empower Chicanas (mainly) politically and economically. The article then explains the history of how the organization began, mentioned what came out of their first conference, and what legal cases they were involved in. The article then talks about the organization’s current status, in which conferences are now geared more towards empowering women through education. 

Do you see any biases? 

The only bias I noted was in the section History. In discussing how the organization came to be, it talked about how Mexican-American women felt like the National Chicano Issues Conference focused on issues pertaining to men more than the issues of women. However, without proper citations, I wonder where that information came from. Aside from that, the article did well being unbiased about the  Comisión Femenil Mexican Nacional. 

What kinds of sources are used? 

Barely any sources are used. I clicked on two sources provided under the external links header, and one of the sources sends me to a blank page with no information present. The other link sends me to another Wikipedia page. The sources are not up to standards for this article. 

How might you improve the article to meet Wikipedia’s standards and show your skills in historical research and analysis? 

The main problem I will tackle that this article has is the sources provided. Because of the lack of sources, I have to do more intensive research on the Comisión Femenil Mexican Nacional to confirm what is presented in the Wikipedia article.

 

Tupac Amaru

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Although this article is neutral, it is not informative about who Tupac Amaru is. If anything the article covers the history of past Incas more than the history of Tupac Amaru. Anytime Tupac Amaru is referred to, it is only a sentence or two. Instead of him being the focal point, he was a detail. Who or what Amaru stood for was incredibly underrepresented in the article. The only real section that covered Amaru was his execution. The article certainly goes into more depth about his execution rather than his life. Out of 5 links, only 1 link works. The one link that did work did support to explain further who Tupac Amaru was. Every fact is referenced with an appropriate reference. Although, the references themselves are not the most reliable. The information in the article is not out of date but it is limited. What is missing is what Tupac Amaru stood for. In the Talk page there is a discussion about the spelling of Tupac, whether it is Tupac or Tupac. There is also a point raised that the article has the incorrect death. The Talk page also features his last words and explains them in detail. The article is rated start class, which isn’t considered as reliable. It is definitely an article that could use a lot of work. Although it is part of the WikiProjects, it barely touches on the impact Tupac Amaru had on the world. In class we spent a good amount of time discussing how what he stood for continued to be of relevance in today’s time. Although not as important as going into depth about what Tupac Amaru stood for, I do think it is important to add how he has influenced other people, for example Tupac Shakur.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Túpac_Amaru

LA In The News: Mexico Says It Has Cut the Number of Migrants Heading to the U.S

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Trump threatened to place tariffs on all Mexican imports if Mexico did not stop the flow of migrants from coming into the U.S. The threat from the Trump administration enticed the Mexican government to take action on the migrants crossing the U.S-Mexico border, such as employing the National Guard and police officers to help combat migrants crossing. That action, in turn, has significantly dropped the number of migrants captured at the border, “63,989 in August, from 146,266 at the end of May” (Ahmed 2019). Rights groups have begun to quickly criticize President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s decision to one, comply with the Trump administration and two, “allow the United States to send migrants seeking asylum back to Mexico to await their hearings” (Ahmed 2019). Critics have also pointed out the Mexican administration’s failure to invest in programs to keep Mexican and Central Americans to stay in their homeland rather than emigrating. 

This article portrays Latin America, specifically Mexico as economic puppets to the U.S, doing everything as told. Even though Mexico clearly promised to keep migrant rights at the forefront of policies, the Mexican government clearly allows the U.S to hold power over their immigration policies.

Although the issue of immigration is not a revolution, Mexico making policies due to economic threats/pressure from the U.S reminds me of world context from the five critical factors of a revolutionary movement. It is quite clear that Mexico’s advances to stop migrants from crossing the border have to do with the U.S. This article also highlighted the dangers of asylum seekers awaiting their hearings in Mexico, “migrants are sent back to ultraviolet states like Tamaulipas and Chihuahua to fend for themselves while they await their hearing dates” (Ahmed 2019). I could not help but relate this account to our discussion of the differences between northern and southern Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution. During our readings and discussions about the revolutionary leaders, their goals varied, much because of where they were from. North and southern Mexico have different traditions, landscapes, demographics, all which made up what each revolutionary leader envisioned Mexico to be. To tie this in, many migrants are coming from the south to the north. I wonder if the treatment of migrants varies when they cross southern and northern Mexico? Or how migrants from Central America get treated in southern versus northern Mexico? Is there even a difference due to the differences between northern and southern Mexico?

Ahmed, Azam. “Mexico Says It Has Cut the Number of Migrants Heading to U.S.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Sept. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/world/americas/mexico-migrants-trump.html.

 

 

Class Notes: 8/28/19

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August 28, 2019

Today, we started off class by watching the music video, Beautiful, by Snoop Dogg ft. Pharrell. The music video took place in Brazil. It demonstrated the diversity of people, mainly women, in Brazil. Not only did the music highlight the diversity of people, it also showed many public spaces in Brazil. After the video, Tristan presented his Latin America in the News. He talked about the return of an Incan mummy to Native Bolivia. During his presentation he commented on the absurdity that once the indeginous body was no longer useful, since societal change on display to the public changed, only then was the body returned to its native land. 

Historical Skills and Questions for Consideration

  • How to read and analyze secondary sources.
  1.  What is Becker’s main argument?
  2. What tools does Becker’s text contain to orient our study?
  3. How do the scholarly definition of revolution we’ve encountered so far with with your ideas? 

Key Terms

Anarchism: opposes hierarchies as unnecessary and fundamentally harmful to the realization of a more just and equal society. Anarchists fought to destroy existing institutions, eliminate governments and capitalism, and create a new society. Can be extreme individualism to complete collectivism. 

Marxism: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles ideas for the struggle of the working class to attain a higher form of human society. They critiqued capitalism and believed the industrial working class were the agent of social change.  

Imperialism: a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force. 

Anti-Colonial: Tupac Amaru, Haitian Slave Revolt, and Cancudos were all anti colonial revolts against Spain and Portugal in order to gain independence. 

Transcribe Passage: Define revolutions in your own words:

Becker laid out the groundwork to multiple revolutions and his purpose was to connect past revolutions to now. The class defines revolution as change, political, power, group, and social. As we read in chapter one, all of the anti-colonial revolts’ end game was to create change. In all the revolutions there was a power struggle and social struggle. The way we define revolutions now correlates greatly to what revolutions meant in the past. During our discussion, questions arose as to why race and oppression were not one of the words we, as a class, associated with revolutions. The last question was, are revolutions always violent? Majority of the class voted for “no, not always” instead of “yes”. 

Links

  1. Racial Diversity in Brazil “turns a new page”: https://www.ft.com/content/abe60816-3cc9-11e8-bcc8-cebcb81f1f90
  2. Overall Impacts of Imperialism: https://latinamerica1800s.weebly.com/overall-impacts-of-imperialism.html
  3. The Inca Ruler and Peruvian Revolutionary Who Inspired 2Pac’s Persona: https://culturacolectiva.com/history/tupac-amaru-ii-peruvian-revolutionary-tupac-shakur-rapper 

Examination Questions

  1. What makes a revolution violent? Can all revolutions be non-violent? If not, what makes some revolutions violent and other non-violent? 
  2. How much power do music videos have on the perception of a country? (e.g. the Beautiful music video by Snoop Dogg ft. Pharrell showcased the country of Brazil)
  3. Does the definition of revolution vary across different identities? If so, why? (e.g socio-economic status, gender, sexuality, religious affiliation, race, etc)